suffred for our Sins an evident sign that all those who held the Flesh of Christ to be true Flesh and not Phantastical believed also the Eucharist to be that very true Flesh This is what Protestants themselves confess of the most eminent Fathers of God's Church in each Age from our Saviours time concerning the Doctrin of Transubstantiation as I find them cited in two Treatises the one called The Protestants Apology for the Roman Church the other The Progeny of Catholicks and Protestants whose Authors I never heard were taxed of insincerity in their quotations And if it be true what Dr. Field saith of Bellarmin that if he could prove that Protestants confess the Roman to be the true Church he needed not to use any other arguments I might supersede any farther proof of this matter and leave the Doctor to join issue with his Fellow-Brethren But the Reader perhaps may desire to see the Testimonies themselves of those Fathers which were so pregnant as to force such learned Men of the Protestant Party to confess that they taught the Doctrin of Transubstantiation And in order to his satisfaction in this Point I shall set down one Testimony of each Father in the same order as they stand cited above and but One to avoid Prolixity TESTIMONIES OF THE FATHERS FOR TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN the beginning of the Eighth Century St. Jo. Damascen li. 4. de fid c. 14. The Bread and Wine and Water are by the Invocation and Coming of the Holy Ghost changed supernaturally into the Body and Blood of Christ And with him agrees Theophylact The Bread is transformed by the Mystical Benediction and the coming of the Holy Ghost into the Flesh of our Lord. At the end of the Fifth and beginning of the Sixth Century St. Gregory Our Creator well knowing our Infirmity by that Power with which he made all things of nothing by the Sanctification of his Spirit converts the Bread and Wine mixed with Water their proper species or figure remaining into his Flesh and Blood In the Fifth Eusebius Emissenus and St. John Chrysostome The former saith Before Consecration there is the Substance of Bread and Wine but after the words of Christ it is the Body and Blood of Christ For what wonder that he who created them with his Word should convert or change them after they were created The latter The things we propose are not done by Humane Power We hold but the place of Ministers but he that sanctifieth and changeth them is Christ himself In the Fourth Century St. Ambrose and because this is the Age I suppose the Doctor pitches upon when he saith he will undertake to instance in an Age since the first three Centuries Wherein if the most learned Fathers and Bishops who lived in it are to be credited Transubstantiation was not believed I shall be somewhat larger in citing the words of St. Ambrose and also add other Testimonies of Fathers of the same time to his that the Reader may see what Issue his Undertaking is like to have in this matter First Then St. Ambrose as if he foresaw my Adversaries objection puts it down in these formal words You will say perhaps How do you prove to me that I receive the Body of Christ when I see another thing And the way he takes to Answer it is by comparing the change made here in the Nature of the Bread with the examples of those miraculous changes which were wrought by Holy Men of Old in the Natures of other things as of Moses's Rodd being turned into a Serpent the Waters of Aegypt into Blood c. From whence he infers that if the Benediction of those who were but pure Men was of such force as to change Nature What must we say of that divine Consecration where the very words of our Lord and Saviour do operate Thou hast read saith he of the works of the Creation how God spake the Word and they were made he commanded and they were created that is produc'd out of nothing The Word therefore of Christ which of nothing could make that to be which was not can it not change those things which are viz. Bread and Wine into that which before they were not viz. his own Body and Blood surely it is not a less matter to give new natures to things out of nothing than to change them after they are made Again You will say perhaps my Bread is usual Bread No saith he this Bread is Bread before the Sacramental words When the Consecration is performed of Bread is made the Flesh of Christ He spake the Word and it was made he commanded and it was created And that we may not doubt he meant it was made his true Flesh he saith As our Lord Jesus Christ is the true Son of God not as Men are by Grace but as the Son of the substance of his Father so it is his very true Flesh as himself hath said which we receive and his very true Blood which we drink This and much more doth St. Ambrose write of this subject so that no Man need to wonder if the Centurists say he wrote not well of Transubstantiation And I have either read or heard it reported of Calvin that he wish'd the Devil had struck the Pen out of St. Ambrose's hand when he wrote those Books of the Sacraments But let us now see what other Fathers of the same Age teach concerning this Point S. Cyril Our Saviour saith he sometime changed Water into Wine and shall we not think him worthy of our belief that he changed Wine into his Blood S. Gregory Nyssen We do rightly believe that the Bread sanctified by the Word of God is changed into the Body of God the Word By vertue of his Benediction he changeth the nature of the things which are seen Bread and Wine into that Viz. his own Body S. Gaudentius The Maker Lord of Natures who produceth Bread out of the Earth doth again of Bread because he can and hath promised to do it make his own Body and He who made Water of Wine maketh of Wine his own Blood These are Fathers who lived in the Age immediately following the three first Centuries to whom I might add St. Chrysostome above cited who flourished in this Century though he dyed in the beginning of the next and others but these may suffice to let the Reader see if this be the Age which the Doctor intends to instance in how unlikely it is he should make good what he asserts that Transubstantiation was not believed in it In the Third Century St. Cyprian saith The Bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being changed not in shape or figure but in nature was by the Omnipotency of the Word made Flesh And Ursinus confesseth There are many sayings in him which seem to affirm Transubstantiation And Tertullian in the same Age saith that our Lord having taken Bread made it his
the case is the same as to the Point of Reason Men must be allowed the use of their Judgment and Reason in the search of both And therefore he must either acknowledge his Charge to have been groundless when he taxed Catholicks for exposing Faith to uncertainty or he must grant to Men though it be with contradicting himself which is much easier to do than to swallow the least seeming Contradiction in a matter of Faith that they may and ought to make use of their discerning Faculty as to the truth or falshood of matters proposed to our belief which I confess I take to be the same as to believe no more than their Reason can comprehend and so if Reason chance to meet with some seeming Contradiction with which it is not able or willing to grapple the Article ought and must be exploded for such a monstrous Prodigy of hood wink'd and abused Faith as no Man can imagine God would e're obtrude upon the Faith of Reasonable Men. But here again perhaps he will say that although God may impose upon us an Obligation of believing against the Conceptions of our Reason yet he cannot do it against the suggestion of our sense because as he asserts p. 540. This would be to overthrow all certainty of Faith where the matters to be believed depend upon mattâ—r of Fact But here I would desire to know what Angel from Heaven reveal'd this Doctrin to him Suppose in the case of the two Disciples at Emmaus that our Saviour had vanished out of their sight before he brake bread might he not hâ—ve told them afterwards that it was He who had appeared to them in a disguise without overthrowing all the certainty of Faith where matters to be believed depend upon matter of Fact St. Chrysostome above cited I am sure was of another mind in the very point of Christ's real presence in the Sacrament when he bids us obey God in that mystery though what he say seem to contradict our thoughts and eyes And so was St. Cyril too when he exhorts Christians not to consider it as naked Bread and Wine for it 〈…〉 Blood of Christ according to the words of Christ himself And although sense do suggest this to theâ— viz. that it is Bread yet let Faith confirm thee Do not judge of the thing by thy tast but know and hold for most certain that this Bread which is seen of us is not Bread though the tast judge it to be Bread but the Body of Christ and that the Wine which is seen by us although it seem Wine to the sense of tasting notwithstanding is not Wine but the Blood of Christ This is what these Holy Fathers teach in this matter and with great reason for as God is not only God of the Hills but also of the Valleys So is he God not onâ—y of our Reason but of our Senses also And if the Antidote his Goodness hath prâ—scrib'd to Cure our Corrupt Nature be prepared in such a manner as requires the captivating of our Sense as well as of our Understanding who shall question either his Wisdome or Power He hath said This is my Body though it appear to us to be bread And this being but one Exception from the General Rule of Sensation why that should overthrow all certainty of Faith more than so many exceptions as the Trinity and other Mysteries lay upon the General Rules of our Reasoning I leave to all Men of sense and Reason to judge O but this is the strangest of Miracles and Miracles ought to be the objects of sense I grant it of such Miracles as are done for the Conversion of Unbelievers but this is not done upon such an account but for the Sanctification of those who believe already And for these it is enough that Christ hath said It is his Body They know very well the danger of not believing him more than their senses And that others may know it also I shall set it before them in the words of St. Epiphanius no less than 1300. Years ago We see saith he speaking of the Blessed Sacrament that It is neither equal nor like in proportion or Image to his Flesh to the Invisible Deity to the lineaments of a Body for this is of a round forme and insensible according to power And yet because he was pleased to say through Grace This is my Body every one believeth his saying For who believeth not that it is his very true Body falleth from Grace and Salvation Thus much to the Doctors Principles of Sense and Reason Let us now see what he says against the Grounds and Motives of Transubstantiation CHAP. V. A Check to the Doctor 's bigg words against the Grounds of Transubstantiation with a new Example of reporting faithfully as he calls it the Words and Sense of an Author § 1. TO show there are not the same Grounds and Motives for Christs presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation as for his Divinity my Adversary instances in Three 1. The Authority of the Roman Church 2. Catholick Tradition 3. Scripture And for the first of these Viz. The Authority of the Roman Church if it have any at all it stands against the Doctor for Transubstantiation and that so evidently that he is forced to take the confidence p. 130. utterly to deny that to be any ground of believing at all For my part I believe every sober Person of his own Party will judge he had much better have said nothing at all And I cannot but think how St. Austin who calls the Chair of Peter that Rock which the proud Gates of Hell do not overcome and professes that the Principality of the Apostolick Chair did always conserve its vigour in the Roman Church would have startled to hear one single Doctor so pertly deny it to be any Ground at all of believing How St. Hierome who writing to Pope Damasus saith I know that upon this Rock the Church is built and whosoever eateth the Lamb out of this House is Prophane c. would have whetted his stile more against him for denying her Authority to be any Ground of believing at all than ever he did against Vigilantius for deriding Invocation of Saints Veneration of Relicks or Lighting Candles at Noon-Day in the Church c. And how St. Irenaeus would have excluded him out of the Society of Christians for this peremptory behaviour when he affirms it necessary for all other Churches convenire to have recourse and agree with the Roman by reason of its more eminent Principality That this was the Dignity and Prerogative of the Roman Church in the time of these Holy Fathers the Doctor himself cannot deny and if he pretend she is fallen from the Purity she then enjoyed it is but what the Donatists his Predecessors in this point said above twelve hundred years ago when as St. Austin tells us they call'd the Apostolick Chair the Chair of Pestilence because it oppos'd their Novelities
than the Athenians who were so possessed with a wrong apprehension of the Nature of God that as St. Chrysostom tells us upon that place when they heard St. Paul speak of Anastasis that is the Resurrection because it was a new thing they never heard of before and the word of the Feminine Gender they concluded he brought them Tidings of some new Goddess § 2. As for the second place of Rom. 1. 21 23. nothing can be more clear than that the Apostle speaks there of the Idols or Images of the Heathens for after he had laid down the matter of fact which he condemned viz. That although they knew God yet they did not glorifie him as God but changed the Glory of the Incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible Man he adds also And to Birds and four footed Beasts and Creeping Things which words were clapp'd under Deck by the Doctor with an c. because they plainly declare what kind of Images the Apostle meant and then vers 25. tells us that by so doing They changed the Truth of God into a Lie and worshipped and served the Creature rather than the Creator These are the words of the Apostle so plain that the Doctor could find no evasion but to tell us that St. Paul doth not discourse here against the most gross and sottish Idolaters of the Heathen but as St. Chrysostom saith he well observes against the Philosophers and the wisest among them who though they differed in their Opinions of Religion extreamly from the Vulgar yet they concurred with them in all the external practices of their Idolatry And before we go farther it is well worth the observing what he observes out of St. Chrysostom Dices quid haec ad Philosophos You will say saith St. Chrysostom if the Apostle reprehended the Heathens for giving the glory of God to irrational Creatures and what was yet more sottish to their very Images what is that to the Philosophers or more Intelligent among them Marry I answer saith he that what hath been said most of all concerns them For they have for their Masters the Aegyptians who were the Inventors of these things And Plato who yet seems graver than the rest glories in them Nay his Master Socrates was a great Admirer of them for this is He who commands a Cock to be offered to Aesculapius Hence you may see the Images of Beasts and Creeping Things to be worshipped and together with them Apollo and Bacchus This is what St. Chrysostom observ'd of the Philosophers And was it not luckily done of the Doctor to make him the Patron of his Explication viz. that the intent of the Apostle was not to charge them with false Notions of a Deity but to shew their vanity and folly in thinking they had found out subtiller ways of defending the Common Idolatry among them and instead of opposing them made use of their Wits to excuse them But suppose what he says were so that the Philosophers were as subtil as he would make them were they not worthily condemned by the Apostle though but for the external profession of praying and offering Sacrifice to the Statues of Jupiter Venus Mercury c. and also to those of Birds and four-footed Beasts and Creeping Things as the Vulgar did And if they found out subtiller ways of defending the Common Idolatries among them and instead of opposing them made use of their Wits to excuse them were they not to blame in so doing But what is all this to Christians To make his discourse from the Apostles words come home to them he should show that the Images by which they honour Christ and his Saints are worshipped by them as Gods or as the Images of false Gods as those were of which the Apostle speaks in that place otherwise the subtil ways of defending he covertly aims at wil be as allowable against the Deserters of the Churches Faith in the point of Images as in other Mysteries of Christianity But to come to the point it self § 3. The most Intelligent Heathens saith he did never look on their Images as any other than Symbols or Representations of that Being to which they gave Divine Worship What Being this was he doth not tell us whether the onely true God or those false ones represented by their Images If he mean these latter he knows in his Conscience he does wrong to Catholicks in comparing them even to his Wiser Heathens If the former he does those more right by his subtil way of defending them than appears from the Testimonies he brings They ever thought of doing themselves For all that is expressed there and you may believe he would suppress nothing that might make to his purpose out of Origen Eusebius Athanasius Arnobius Augustin Maximus Tyrius and Julian concerning the more Intelligent Heathens is that they did not look on their Images as Gods That they look'd upon them nevertheless as Images or Symbols of false Gods some of his own Testimonies affirm as that of Celsus in Origen lib. 7. That none but a stark fool believes the Images themselves to be Gods had he not left out the latter part of it viz. Non diis dicatas Statuas but that they were Statues erected to the Gods And that of Julian when he saith They are but Symbols of the presence of the Gods But not any thing is there in them to signifie that they worshipped the true God by them besides the two words of Divinity and Deity which he cogg'd into the Testimonies of Arnobius and St. Austin to make his Reader believe so I shall set down the passages both in his words and the Fathers that the Reader by comparing them may learn what credit he is to give hereafter to his citing of Authors and at the same time receive a farther Testimony of my kindness to him in taking the rest upon his word First then for Arnobius What Dr. St. p. 74. makes the Wiser Heathens deny there is that they ever thought their Images to be Gods or to have any Divinity in them but what onely comes from their Consecration to such an use And the Reader finding the word Divinity in a different Character and in the singular number as it were in opposition to the Gods he immediately mentions before and that they have no Divinity but what comes from their Consecration to such an use What can he think but that those wise Heathen intended to worship the true Divinity by those Images and look'd onely upon them as Signs consecrated to such an use by some extrinsecal deputation like that of the Images of Christ and his Saints among Catholicks or of the Communion-Cup or Table even among Protestants But is this what Arnobius makes the Heathens to say Pray hear what the wiser Heathens return upon him when he upbraided them for worshipping Gods of Gold and Silver the works of mens hands Erras laberis nam neque nos aera neque auri argentique
not content to make a God of This Both Passible and Mortal Jesus try To thrust Him into one substantial knot With his Eternal sire who Him begot 228 Two yet not Two but One these Two must be Nay and a Third into the knot they bring The Spirit must come in to make up Three And yet these Three be but one single Thing Thus fast and loose they play or ev'n and odd And We a juggling Trick must have for God 229 If God be One then let Him be so still Why jumble we we know not what together Did all the World not know their God untill This old blind Age discover'd Him Did neither The Patriarks believe nor Prophets see Aright because They took not One for Three 231 Let Love and Duty make of Christ as high And Glorious a Thing as Wit can reach Provided that against the Deity No Injury nor Sacriledge they preach If only on such terms He lov'd may be Him to neglect is Piety say we And then a little after he concludes 234 For If your Faith relies on Men who are Themselves but founded and built up of dust If yoâ— by Reason's Rule disdain to square Yoâ—r Pâ—ety and take your God on Trust Which Heaven forbid You only are a Prize Unto Impostor's fair-tongu'd Fallacies Thus doth this Ingenious Person represent an Heretick in his true Colours arguing against the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation upon the Principles with which Doctor St. 〈◊〉 the Doctrin of Transubstantiation aâ—d in terms so equivalent that the Dr. seems but to have resolv'd into Prose what the other wrote in Verse as may appear from this following Parallel 'T is Ignorance and Madness saith the Cerinthian Heretick to believe that God can be Three and One and that Christ is God Stanz 213. 220. 'T is Folly and Madness saith Dr. St. to believe Transubstantiation He becomes an Idolater by not being a Fool or a Mad-man p. 120. The Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation are monstrous Prodigies of abused Faith saith the Cerinthian Stanz 213. Transubstantiation saith D. St. is so strange and sudden a change that he can hardly say that God becoming Man was so great a wonder as a little piece of bread becoming God p. 120. The Cerinthian affirms of the Trinity and Incarnation that they are against all reason and founded on Contradictions Stanz 214. Dr. St. affirms of Transubstantiation that it is absurd and for a Man to believe it he must swallow the greatest Contradictions to Sense and Reason Imaginable p. 130. In a word the Cerinthian makes his Sense and Reason to be the Rule of his Faith Stanz 234. And Dr. St. will believe nothing that seems to contradict them p. 561. Only the Cerinthian affirms the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation to transcend Pagan-blasphemy which I do not see yet that Dr. St. â—ath ventured to say of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Perhaps he will reply to this Parallel that the difficulties the Cerinthian objects against the Trinity and Incarnation are but seeming Contradictâ—ons but those in the Point of Transubstantiation are real ones but then he must grant according to his Principles that whilst they seem to be Contradictions they are not to be believed by those to whom they seem so that is by the unlearned who are the greatest part Or if they may notwithstanding believe those Mysteries they may much rather believe that of Transubstantiation since it seems a greater Contradiction that the very self same Nature should be whole and undivided in three distinct Persons than that the same Body should be in many places and that the Invisible Word should be made Flesh than that Bread should be converted into that Flesh How Dr. St. will extricate himself I know not but the way which Dr. Beaumont takes to secure the Soul from being startled with these seeming Contradictions is to introduce her Angel Guardian conducting her to Christ's Catholick Church the Ground and Pillar of Truth And upon this Ground it is For in his Preface he recants aforehand if any thing throughout the whole Poem should happen against his Intention to prove discord to the Consent of Christ's Catholick Church that he makes the Angel perswade his Pupil to contemn all the seeming Contradictions which crafty and subtil Wits object against the Real Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament if not against Transubstantiation it self And because the Book is not every where to be found as not having been so often Printed as Dr. St.'s because there is no Prophane Invective in it against the Persons and Lives of Gods Saints I shall venture to Transcribe another parcel of Verses out of it so proper to the present subject as if written on purpose by the Ingenious Author to crush in the Egg those secret workings of Atheism and Irreligion which the aforesaid Principle is apt to breed in the Wits of this Age under so colourable a pretence as that of not being fool'd out of their Sense and Reason 74 When Jesus by his Water cleansed had His Servant's Feet and by his Grace their Hearts Shewing what Preparation must be made By all who ever mean to have their Parts In his pure Banquet down he sits again And them with Miracles doth entertain And then having described the Institution of the Sacrament he goes on 81 Sweet Jesu O how can thy World forget Their Royal Saviour and his Bounty who Upon their Tables his own self hath set Who in their Holy Cups fails not to flow And in their Dishes lie Did ever Friend So sure a Token of his Love commend 82 Infallibly there dost Thou flow and lie Though mortal Eyes discover no such thing Quick-sighted Faith reads all the Mystery And humble Pious Souls doth easily bring Into the Wonder 's Cabinet and there Makes all the Jewels of this Truth appear 83 Shee generously dares on God rely And trust his Word how strange so e're it be If Jesus once pronounces This is my Body and Blood Far far be it cries she That I should think my dying Lord would cheat Me in his Legacy of Drink and Meat 84 His Word is most Omnipotent and He Can do what e're he says and more than I Can or would understand What is 't to me If He transcends Humane Capacity Surely it well becomes Him so to do Nor were He God if he could not do so 85 Let Him say what He will I must deny Him to be God or else believe His Word Me it concerneth not to verify What he proclaims I only must afford Meek Credit and let Him alone to make Good whatsoever He is pleas'd to speak 86 Gross and unworthy Spirits sure They be Who of their Lord such mean Conceptions frame That parting from his dearest Consorts He No Tokens of his Love did leave with Them But simple Bread and Wine a likely Thing And well-becoming Heavens Magnificent King 88 Ask me not then How can the Thing be done What power